The Nativity this year is quite small and came from Naples; it’s definitely one of the less-attractive ones that they’ve had. It looks better at night, with the lights etc., than during the day.

And here is a shot of the Nativity that is inside the Basilica:

The scene is actually much wider than this, but it was too difficult to photograph the whole thing with all the people there.

Several of us from the university I attend had gone to St. Peter’s to go on a tour of the “scavi” (the excavations underneath, including the tomb of St. Peter). Here is a shot of the group at the very end, as we are looking at the tomb of St. Peter with Cardinal Angelo Comastri (center foreground), the Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica: